Year: 2017

The last monthly review of the year! Not sure I’ll keep these going next year but time will tell. Lived Highlights Another visit to Six by Nico Completed my third (and final) BootCamp I got an inspirational Awesome Fiver Enjoyed the Gorillaz gig way more than anticipated Bought a new drinks cabinet Ohhh and Honeyblood casually blew the roof off ABC Glasgow Ahhh December, and your parties and nights out; the work night out was the usual nonsense, the party at a friends with a huge spread of excellent (homemade) party foods was fun, the gym night out was a great cocktail filled laugh, and I started a new tradition with some colleagues (aka Team Awesome) by going to the …

Have yourself a Honeybloody Christmas! Featuring sets by Emme Woods, Man of Moon, and The Spook School (I only got there in time to catch the latter), there was a great atmosphere prior to Honeyblood coming on stage. View this post on Instagram Honeyblood 🤘 @yumhoneyblood A post shared by Gordon McLean (@gmclean) on Dec 24, 2017 at 5:24am PST Having seen them twice, once supporting Foo Fighters at Murrayfield, and once at the teeny tiny Hug & Pint, I had a sense of what to expect. Expectation be damned! Honeyblood have been touring for the past few months, and it shows. Up-tempo versions of some of their tracks ripped along, the tracks from the now one-year-old second album sounded …

It’s over. Another year and you’ve survived Christmas Day. Well done! For some Christmas can be an ordeal, a day to be gotten through. For others it’s a day to savour and enjoy. Whatever type of Christmas Day you had, it’s over now. Boxing Day is a day for leftovers if you have them (trifle for breakfast!) and lazing around in front of the TV. Maybe you’ll go for a walk, maybe you’ll visit some friends, or maybe you’ll simply relax and enjoy the fact that the ‘big day’ has passed once more. I’ll be doing all of the above; trifle for breakfast, then a walk to a friends house. However you spend these festive days, I hope you are …

Last one of the year (I’m taking next week off to focus on family and friends), I hope you’ve enjoyed these random selections as much as I have. It’s been quite a year, but here is to a wonderful 2018 for everyone. The house that Edek built – and the secret suitcase kept inside When Edward “Edek” Hartry and his wife Teresa designed and built their family home near Woking, they created a daringly modern building full of light. Their glass and timber home stood out among the red-brick Tudorbethan of stockbroker Surrey – simple, open-plan and translucent. Quite a story, and quite a life they lead. Pinegrove on How Being a Good Artist and a Good Person Are the …

What would you do with a fiver? That’s the question recently posed by Awesome Foundation Glasgow, as they handed out bright pink envelopes on Buchanan Street. They hoped the fivers would be put to good use; donated to charity, maybe used to purchase food bank items, or used to buy a hot meal for someone who needed one. I happened to be in town that day and received one of the envelopes. I already had half a mind on what I’d do with it, and it’s been great to see the updates on social media on what others did with theirs. I decided to embrace the ‘fiver’ aspect rather than the monetary amount itself, and thought I’d buy tea and …

Despite eschewing New Year Resolutions for the past few years I happily set myself the challenge of reading 24 novels this year (tracked in Goodreads). When I was younger I used to read a lot more than I do now but these days, with so many more things fighting for my attention, my ability to carve out a few hours to sit and read can seem like a real challenge. So, I figured, I could game myself into setting aside some time to read. Even though I’d been attending a semi-regular book club (it’s my attendance that is semi-regular, not the book club), I realised that I was struggling to read enough and that was enough to let some old …

The Problem with Muzak Imagine you are in an airport, and you have forgotten to eat lunch. It’s a mistake you will pay for with a dull, expensive dinner. I like Spotify but also aware it is limiting my musical view. Something for 2018 I think… Former Facebook executive has sworn off social media because he doesn’t want to be “programmed” While Facebook’s business is booming and the company continues to expand its tentacles to every corner of the internet, its early employees and investors are growing more and more vocal about the damage it has wrought among its users. Maybe something else for 2018, cut back on FB. Time to delete from my phone? For the Good of Society …

My third (and final) BootCamp is over. That’s 10 weeks, two sessions a week, of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). DONE. No longer will I be getting up and going to the gym at 9am on a Saturday morning! This was my third BootCamp in a row and I’ve been lucky enough to meet some amazing people who have inspired me along the way and kept me motivated to turn up. Safe to say that the camaraderie is what kept me going back and that is down to the atmosphere of the gym and the trainers. I WANT to go this gym, even after the very first, nervous, BootCamp session I knew I would be back. This is not a …

What a year it’s been at Six by Nico, and what a way to finish out 2017. So popular was their announcement of their ‘Disney’ menu that their website and booking system crashed, and they’ve had to open up on a Monday to cope with demand. I was glad we book well in advance (roll on January 11th for the next visit). But all the noise on social media begs the question, was it any good? View this post on Instagram Six by Nico: Disney A post shared by Gordon McLean (@gmclean) on Dec 5, 2017 at 11:11pm PST The menu for our seventh visit (from the website): RATATOUILLE – Ratatouille / Comte Espuma / Dijon Crumble MAD HATTER TEA …

Remove the legend to become one When I started my first job at Amazon.com, as the first analyst in the strategic planning department, I inherited the work of producing the Analytics Package. From little acorns, mighty rainforests are borne. Have you tried making yourself a more interesting person? Another passed-down tale: a student getting her story back from Barry, with the honest criticism on it: This just isn’t interesting. As I understand it, the student, a whiner, complained, What can I do to make it be interesting? Chimes with some ideas from the book The Charisma Myth (worth a look as well). THIS → Social media is keeping us stuck in the moment The next time you look at social media, I …